Bill Gates Tops List Of World’s Richest

For a third straight year, the rest of the world’s billionaires are looking up at Bill Gates and his bulging bankbook. The Microsoft mogul/philanthropist ranked No. 1 yet again on the annual Forbes ranking of the richest people on earth, according to the annual Forbes magazine ranking of the world’s wealthiest people.

The 60-year-old Gates, with a $75 billion fortune, claimed the Forbes top spot for the 17th time in the last 21 years — and that after losing $4.2 billion of his wealth in the last 12 months.

Closing fast was Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, who jumped from No. 16 to No. 6 after adding another $11.2 billion to his vast wealth. Amancio Ortega, 69, the world’s wealthiest retailer, ranked No. 2 with $67 billion, followed by Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim Helu and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in the top five.

The highest-ranking New Yorker was Michael Bloomberg, the former three-term mayor and presidential hopeful, with an estimated net worth at $40 billion. GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump, with $4.5 billion, didn’t crack the top 100 of American billionaires. The Donald was No. 121 among the list of America’s richest, behind one of his fellow New York real estate titans — Richard LeFrak, ranked 76th with a fortune of $6.3 billion.

The world’s richest self-made woman also made her debut: Zhou Qunfei, who earned a $5.9 billion fortune off smartphone screens, is ranked at No. 205. Qunfei is the wealthiest among the 190 women on the list.

Forbes, in its 30th annual ranking of the rich, reported a total of 1,810 billionaires around the globe, down from the record total of 1,826 in 2014. The U.S. still boasts the most with 540 billionaires, followed by the 251 in China.

There were 221 people who dropped from the billionaire ranks in 2015. There were a total of 198 newcomers to the ranks, along with a number who had fallen from the ranks and worked their way back in. The aggregate net worth of the world’s billionaires is down is down $570 million, too, to a still-staggering $6.4 trillion.

The newest and youngest billionaire is a 19-year-old Norwegian heiress, Alexandara Andresen.